Confessions :: Edited Version
by snapespook
Summary: COMPLETEOtP INCL. It is the night before Ginny's graduation, and a month before her wedding, but first she must confront her heroic groom with the truth of the love and darkness in her past... PLEASE RR
1. Chapter 1: Summons to Truth

A/N : IMPT INFO ABOUT 5TH BOOK INVOLVED! Please don't read this if you haven't read it and don't want to spoil it!  
  
Title : Confessions of an Heiress (Edited Version)  
  
Author : Snapespook  
  
Genre : Drama / Romance  
  
Rating : A solid, to-be-taken-seriously PG-13 (sexuality, mild sexual violence, dialogue about said events)  
  
Summary : It is the night before Ginny's graduation from Hogwarts, as well as a month before her wedding, which she can't go through with until she confronts her heroic groom to be with the truth of the love and darkness in her past. . .  
  
Please R/R  
  
DISCLAIMER : All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.  
  
A/N : I would like to apologize in advance for the no-frills physical appearance of the story; the old *insert stressed word here* method is all I can swing, and I have attempted to alleviate bunching by breaking the text up into mini-paragraphs, but not to the point of impeding on the flow. Any suggestions to improve the effectiveness of the format that my processor is capable of, please make them.  
  
The story as a whole pertains to the original sub-plot of Ginny's life, and stretches over CoS, PoA, GoF, and OtP (most heavily CoS), and you really need to have read them all to get everything in here. The Chamber of Secrets references and tie-ins are faithful to the book, not the movie (ironic, seeing as the movie was my inspiration for the story in the first place), which as a singular source of background information will leave you totally lost. I tie my translation into everything, I assure you. In fact, I would be extremely appreciative to hear of any holes.  
  
Deals with one instance of extremely mildly portrayed but spoken about rape later on, and gets limey just once toward the middle- both are pretty tastefully danced around with vocabulary, though. I tell you that both are coming, and both are contained in memories that she is thinking about while explaining them, so they are between the lines of ^^^ symbols in their chapters, and skipping them won't throw you completely off. But if there's one thing that absolutely no part of this fic or the events portrayed within are intended to be, it's gratuitous.  
  
R/R : I would really appreciate feedback on this piece, especially on my characterization of Harry and style (perspective, the time shifts. . .). Any suggestions for improvement, please make them.  
  
And now, on with the show:  
  
~~ Confessions of an Heiress ~~  
  
~ Chapter 1 : Summons to Truth ~  
  
She momentarily ceased her relentless pacing in the dust-riddled quarters to peer out of the window and felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw him, briskly striding in characteristic feigned confidence up the walkway outside. As she watched his disheveled pitch head journey beneath her and disappear into the pub below, her mind began to race in utter mental panic. She sucked in a final breath of air, which had absolutely none of the calming effect that she had hoped for, and collected herself for what she knew would be one of the most difficult nights of her life.  
  
She turned to the door on the opposite wall in anticipation of him, leaning the small of her back painfully into the windowsill and digging her nails into the head bedpost of the barely accommodated four-poster in the corner to her left, intentionally torturing her nailbeds as she attempted to delve further into the worn wood. She needed the minor stabs of pain, to keep her grasp on reality and her surroundings, in order to not mentally or physically wander off in search of a more appealing situation. For those few seconds she understood those who simply lied to avoid nights like this- such self-deception would certainly render the whole of her life far easier, but she needed to tell him. The words needed to exit her lips in order to put their contents behind her, to rid them from her present mind and leave room for the future. His hand was now on the doorknob, turning it painfully slowly to admit him to the unexpected ambush of truth.  
  
He entered the room, pleased as always at any opportunity to see her, particularly before so momentous an occasion as her graduation, but inquisitive of her odd selection of locale- he knew from her tone when she asked him to clear his evening and meet her that sex was not the object, but he could think of little else that the cramped quarters of the Three Broomsticks' microscopic inn could be used for. He had suspected that she wished to share something with him, but after several hours of agonizing 'what-if's, including most prominently the thought that she was employing the detached safety of an easily escaped to public place to leave him, he had decided to simply swallow his fears as he was so accustomed to doing and face what was no doubt nowhere near as earth-shattering a revelation as she felt it to be. He loved his Gin dearly, but she did tend to over- dramatize matters having anything to do with revelations about herself. To him, at least. Little could be perceived as dramatic to him anymore.  
  
He then recalled a nagging theory; she had engaged in this ritual a few times before, but whatever revelation was her actual intention had never surfaced; substituted at the last moment by some bit of only minorly surprising fluff - resolute intention lost to timorousness. But perhaps this time she would finally reveal whatever skeleton had been haunting her. It was this thought and slight apprehension of its possible consequence that silenced him, not wanting to interrupt her courage.  
  
She met him with an almost imperceptible grain of nervousness in her smile and stood slightly on tiptoe to give him a peck on his right cheek, now far higher than her own after the growth spurt of his fifth and sixth years, and settled back on the heels of her boots somewhat unsteadily. Her mind, in its desperate search for an alternate subject to her task at hand, briefly mulled over how odd it was that she still wasn't entirely used to this new greater height difference, even after two years' practice, and how nice it had been for her petite frame to be less than a clear foot shorter than at least one male in her life for a while. After she had performed the routine locking and silencing spells on the room, with the addition of an incantation that he could not quite place, they sat on the edge of the bed together in mutual silence- he hadn't seen her this vulnerable since her third year, and had no desire to further the condition.  
  
He also knew that anything capable of ruffling the pillar of cool composure and logic under pressure that was Virginia Weasley was no small or impersonal matter. It was reverence for this fact that continued to hold his tongue in check as her hand gingerly brushed his, as though to ask permission. He eagerly granted it, firmly grasping her hand in his to steady her. It was then that she felt the machinery of her logic centers engage, informing her mouth that silence would get them nowhere.  
  
"Harry, I have something to tell you. Several things, actually. Things that I am genuinely sorry that I kept from you until now, things I don't want to tell you even now, but things that I need to. And I need you to listen, to every word I have to say and not interrupt, or go off on any tangents or quests, or stop listening or just plain leave until I'm finished. Once I am, you can ask any questions you like, or leave to never come back, but I want you to remember . . . you say yourself that I'm a different person now . . . and this is immensely difficult for me."  
  
He squeezed her hand and gave her what he hoped was as reassuring a look as he intended. She took a relieved breath, reminding herself of who this was, and felt the need to remind him as well- "The first thing that I need to say," she began "is that I love you. I love every bit of your heart and soul with every fiber in my being and that will *never* change. It was never a lie, it was never a stretch. I need you to remember that, no matter what comes out of my mouth."  
  
She could no longer remain still, nervousness having its silent half- suppressed way with her, so she stood and resumed her past hour's pastime of pacing in a small curve in front of him, airy spring robes rustling gently with each calculating step. She had worked out exactly what order in which to deliver her information to be as painless as possible and prepared herself as well as she was humanly able, rehearsed nearly every word, but presented with the actual moment she was now unsure.  
  
"When . . . I . . ." She halted her pacing once again, apparently having shifted the energy expenditure to her vocal chords, yet still never meeting his gaze. "The first year that Sirius was gone, when Hermione at home for the Easter break and you needed the sweat of a female virgin for one of your . . . extracurricular endeavors . . ." He blushed slightly, recognizing the somewhat chiding tone of her words, recalling some of the more foolhardy 'extracurricular endeavors' that he had engaged in over the years before she continued with ". . . I didn't really have plans to go to Gillian's before it needed to be added. I told her it was an early birthday surprise, and had to beg her mother to let me stay until I would have been useless to you."  
  
She briefly looked up at his bewildered face, his search for some pertinence in what she was telling him playing out in his furrowed brow and slightly glazing eyes, and then directly told him "I did it because I didn't want to tell you that I couldn't help you. . ." Her eyes dropped again, taking her voice with it as she went on ". . . that I wasn't a virgin. That I hadn't been for nearly four years." The math quickly done, his eyes dilated in horror at the conclusion that it rendered. She was unaware of this, however, for she had turned her back to him and begun peering mournfully out the window- recipient of the puzzling charm to render it uni-directional- as she continued "Not since the night you destroyed Tom." The tone of her voice was oddly strained at this last statement, though he did not see fit to analyze why through his rising fury.  
  
His fists clenched bunches of he plain tattered bedspread on either side of him as his voice struggled to restrain the yell into a semi-normal tone, but failed miserably "That bastard *RAPED you*?!?!". She rounded on him so quickly that he did not even see her porcelain hand prior to feeling it's furious sting across his cheek. Towering over him from her standing position, her rarely utilized but deadly skill at intimidation was at full throttle as she screamed into his stunned face "You NEVER speak of him like that again!!!!" It was mere seconds after the words had exited her mouth that she realized what she had done. Suddenly petrified, she sank to her knees in front of him as though to beg forgiveness. She reached up to caress the burning shadow of her own hand across his flesh, eyes threatening to mist; she had not expected to lose control of her emotions like this. She spoke with begging fervor as she met his murky liquid green orbs with her own deep molten brown and painfully whispered "I love you", to rhyme with 'I'm sorry.' Absinthe and coffee again parted ways as she became fascinated by a point in space at her own level across the room for the duration of a deadly pause. "And I loved him."  
  
Despite his efforts to maintain her hand's position on his face, it slid down his body to drop and meet its fellow before their owner's legs rose and resumed their stance before the window. "I don't even know where to start" she frankly stated, voice forcibly empty, refusing her emotions exit. "The beginning is always a good place" came his reply, the curt bite of which surprised him, for he had never before been able to contemplate the desire to wound her, but he had also never felt so completely and utterly violated in his life. Having just been informed that not only was he not the keeper of his fiancee's virginity, as he had known until two minutes previous, he was also being assaulted with the even more brutalizing concept that the revived memory of his archnemesis which had attempted his murder in its own right *was*. No other concepts, including the slap or her last statement, had fully processed, averting the impending overload of his conscious mind from the barrage of impossible information and subsequent physical release thereof; a blessing for any furniture in the room that did not wish to be demolished.  
  
Her emotional pain at his tone was only a physically enacted wince, for she had been expecting this, and endeavored to impress a full explanation before the latter ideas *did* process. It was now that her mental reserves engaged, keying in to her fail-safe talent at regurgitating primary and extrapolated information; a gift cultivated by years of relaying facts and conclusions from her missions with him, both official and un. The more she spoke, the more she concentrated on the essence and meaning of what she was saying as opposed to who she was saying it to, and the more detached her mind could render her from the situation- her composure would be stabbed only by the necessity of the word 'you'. That ability alone would make the remainder of the night survivable.  
  
"I had been going out of my mind all year, feeling like a prisoner in my own home, or more specifically my own body. I was always very mature for my age- you of all people know that, now. Hardly an adult, but certainly not an eleven year old. Looking back, I seem to have dispensed with the period spent as the stereotypical giggling pre-adolescent all together. But no matter how I behaved, no matter what frontier I forged or evidence I offered of my greater abilities and needs, no one around me seemed to understand that. The summer before I started at Hogwarts was the real knife, because I had convinced myself that mum and dad were just typical coddling parents, and that the boys would be my salvation once they got home from school- but they were even worse. I was trapped. I wanted to explode half of the time. My only escapes were furiously practicing on the boy's broomsticks - an unknown habit that gave me some sense of power, knowing I was skillful within their comfort zone and they had unknowingly provided the means - and talking about you; one of few subjects that they could follow without condescending to me. I was so sheepish when I finally met you because of my tremendous respect for you, not because I fancied you. I had no idea how to act, or tell myself I was even worthy of your time. At first it completely pre-occupied me, but then I realized that you were my brother's best friend, Harry Potter or not, and it was only right that I treat you accordingly, so I controlled myself. Then I began to discover what a kind, understanding person you were, as well as being extremely familiar with being pre-judged for images. I wanted to connect with you; with someone outside of my bubble I could be on level ground with and might understand me. But every time I tried, Ron knocked me down again. It was the worst it had ever been the day we went to Diagon Ally. The day I met him.  
  
"The diary fell out of my Transfiguration book when I went to pack early that night. I picked it up and looked through it, realized that it was a diary and figured that an absent-minded clerk had shoved it in by accident, or that it was a surplus production the company was using as a free journal for the experiments in the book. Either way, it was mine, and I was comforted for some reason. I had been wishing for someone to talk to who couldn't judge me for my age all summer, and here they had fallen out of the sky. I took it to my desk with the intention of venting everything that I had kept bottled up for the last four months, but when I wrote the date in the corner the ink was absorbed into the page. At first I supposed that the paper was just old and thick, but then looked again and saw that there was still writing; I thought that the date disappearing was just my exhausted imagination, that I was too tired. But when I went to close the book I saw that the handwriting wasn't mine, nor was the phrase what I had written. Perfectly aligned in the corner of the page was neatly scrawled in his obviously antique hand - 'Is it 1992 already?'  
  
"That night was a whirlwind of information exchange. We learned nearly everything about each other's lives- names, places, likes, dislikes, basic beliefs . . . Then surface facts gave way to deeper issues, like being pre- judged for age, a condition he identified whole-heartedly with, passions, fears, pasts, hoped futures- the last somewhat cryptically illustrated on his part- and sleep was forgotten. It wasn't until mum called everyone down for breakfast that I realized any time had passed at all . . . Writing to him was like unlocking my body and letting my mind run free, away from the confines of appearances. It was my sanctuary, and I did it almost constantly every day until I flushed the diary for you to find."  
  
"For me to *find*?" The simple, bewildered statement fell tragically short of expressing the muddle that was his mind at the moment. He desperately hoped she'd say no, but found his hope, as well as everything that he thought he knew about his intended spouse, shattered when she answered with a short, simple "Yes."  
  
An awkward silence hovered for a moment, as she screwed up her courage to leap off of he cliff looming ahead of her- "He wasn't controlling me. I knew what I was literally doing the entire time. The person I was then intentionally released the basilisk, and did most of the planning to capture you herself. She was captivated by him. She loved him. She would have done anything to help him in his . . . and in the end her own . . . cause."  
  
She did not have to look to the bed to know precisely the level of his disbelief, chiseled into a frozen and horrified face, at that moment. She could only explain, and hope he understood.  
  
~*~*~*~ 


	2. Chapter 2: Heir of Slytherin

DISCLAIMER : All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.  
  
A/N : Here comes the first reason it's an 'R' - a single and sacred coupling extremely danced around. If there's one thing that absolutely no part of this story or the events depicted with in are intended to be, it's gratuitous.  
  
Please forgive my half-cocked Latin.  
  
And now, on with the show:  
  
~ Chapter 2 : Heir of Slytherin ~  
  
She was about to begin, but he was first to break the silence; "That's impossible." He made the statement resolutely but absently, as though it were actually spoken by a knowing stranger inside of his skin. She said nothing; she knew he would contemplate what the foreigner said, then his conscious mind would deduce its meaning and elaborate - a process she was well aware that outside interference only hindered. He proceeded down the known path faithfully, staring vaguely ahead as he went on "The year Sirius died I was worried I was being possessed by Voldemort, and you were the only person that could tell me what it felt like because you had been second year . . . you described it, you knew what it was like. If you had been acting freely, you wouldn't have." "You're partly right. I knew because Tom told me what it was like in case I was discovered; that the mind was unquestionably put to sleep for the period of possession, to block any interference from the possessee and deter knowledge of the situation if the possessor desired long-term service. I knew, but not first hand. The person I was then - the person he helped me become- knew what she was doing." His look was that of someone who was thoroughly but flatly boggled. Silence and receptiveness, admittedly born of stunned desire of logic but still available having been achieved, she began.  
  
"As ironically *child*ish as it sounds, he understood me. He never judged me, no matter what I said, no matter what later-to-be-realized-as- unimportant crap I was prattling on about in the beginning. He always listened, always cared, always asked precisely the right questions that made me see the situation for its sheer unimportance, or the crystal clear answer. As time went on, I began to gain the gift myself, asking the questions and seeing the answers on my own. After a couple of months I did it unconsciously, knowing the answers before even asking the questions. And that was only the beginning.  
  
"He brought everything into focus. I felt my intellect sharpen, my wits quicken, my instincts grow more revered, but still controlled- I was beginning an evolution, into a distant relative of what I am now. I was *me* when I was with him. I never realized until I met him that to the rest of world, I was nothing but a bundle of titles. Daughter, sister, student, friend, or one of the above in relation to someone else. Never me. But with him I was simply myself, and I had value.  
  
"After a few months it was like being a different, better person, and I liked it. The more I evolved, the more sophisticated I became, and the more I could appreciate him- the more sense he made to me. The more I could tell he enjoyed our then relevant and engaging conversations as well. I felt myself expand with him. I felt ready. For what I wasn't sure, but I was always ready for whatever may come. I never hesitated in anything, always instantly sure of what to do. I was better. I felt complete. It was as though the Slytherin part of me was coming out. Though I didn't realize that until I was sorted, of course."  
  
His memory quickly accessed, attempting to throw his conscious mind any life-ring of comprehensible information it could to help him from his stupor- she had told him a year into their relationship that the sorting hat had told her 'Ah- yet another Weasley, but here a special one. One part Slytherin, but still two parts. . . GRYFFINDOR!!!!'. She knew his thought process well enough to realize it's current occupation and gave him a moment to process the retrieved information before continuing "I've never told anyone else about the hat saying that. You're the only person who would ever understand." He had indeed understood, knowing what it was to be judged merely for dark *potential* - it had never again entered his mind until now.  
  
She resumed "But while yours lay nearly dormant, merely feeding the fervor of your Gryffindor traits and giving you the edge of confidence in yourself, mine was being developed; at first it was only the aspects of a Slytherin that one has respect for that were cultivating within me, but as time went on I felt myself grow darker. Just slightly at first, then deliciously. After about two and a half months, I told him how much he had changed me, what I was like before I met him. My insecurity, my fears, my idolic reverence for you. Everything that even unusually mature eleven year olds care about, and how much I appreciated him bringing it all together. But then he surprised me when he said that I mustn't let anyone else see it, that I mustn't change in the real world. When I asked why, he explained that the one thing people fear most is change. Even my own family would never see me the same way if I suddenly changed overnight, even if it were for the better. I thought about it, and finally saw that he was right. I could think of dozens of examples of people being temporarily if not permanently excluded for suspicious change, just as he said. So I went on behaving as the old me would have, very careful not to let anyone see the change in me; I sent you the poem on Valentine's Day that year to keep up appearances, and when I tried to tell you and Ron something that morning in the great hall, it was just about finding Percy and Penelope together. I was just acting how I thought the old me would have at the information.  
  
"I was changing so much with Tom, and so quickly that every once in a while I would be talking with him and express what was for me a revolutionary idea or opinion, and he would tease me 'My goodness, that would never come out of the girl even *I* knew a week ago' . . . Finally, I felt like I was on the same page with him, and we began to discuss the past and future of wizardry." She looked him dead in the eye to impress the one thing she most needed him to understand through the entire episode- "Harry, I want it straight right now that I *do not* think like this any more. I didn't before I met him, either. And even while I was with him, I never shared his true enthusiasm, and I never hated anyone." She gave the critical statement a moment to be appreciated before going on.  
  
"When he first asked me to open the chamber and let the basilisk out to do its duty, I hesitated. But then he explained the whole thing, and I couldn't say no to his logic. His logic was perfect. Always impeccable. Humans are above many creatures that they respect and keep, even educate to low levels, but would never admit to a wizarding school. Such was our opinion of muggle-borns. They had to be gotten out of Hogwarts, and though I wished they didn't have to be hurt, I knew that it was the only way that society as a whole would ever listen - that the blind who ran the education systems would ever see - if it was an actual danger to their safety to come. All he had to do was explain, and I understood. And he always explained, he never kept me in the dark. He never said he couldn't tell me that, never said I couldn't handle anything. And because he treated me as though I could handle it, I could. I was trusted, and therefore trust- *worthy*. He brought things out in me that I had longed for all of my life, yet never really thought I could be. I was confident, I was sure. There was simply a quality about him, even in ink. . . he expected it of me, and I was therefore magically capable of it. As soon as I sat down with the diary, as soon as I was with him, I was a different person. A better person. A stronger person, who was capable of anything. Even opening the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
"When that person found out that you were a parselmouth at the dueling club, she saw the opportunity for them to have the basilisk kill you, in the Chamber where it would be considered the accidental death of a foolish student who had lucked out of death twice and thought himself invincible trying to play the hero. All they had to do was feed you enough clues to figure out the basilisk, or rather feed Hermionie enough, then drop a hint to make her realize the pipes, which would lead even Goyle to Moaning Myrtle. But Tom wanted to meet you; meet the famous Harry Potter. She said no, constantly insisted that it was too dangerous. But then the basilisk accidentally petrified Hermione because she used the mirror around the corner before the plan was finished. It wouldn't have hurt Hermione - we had trained it to recognize her scent and pass her by, but she used the mirror to look at it around the corner. But they became concerned about the unexpected depth of your investigation afterwords - worried you would realize that it was my body and turn me in before he was strong enough for the ascension or you had entered the chamber to be taken care of- so they decided that it was worth the risk.  
  
"She had been keeping track of the three of you for the entire year and knew that you used Myrtle's lavatory to brew the polyjuice potion and have your private conversations. She also knew that Myrtle would complain to you if someone threw something down her toilet. So she snuck in when she knew you weren't there but knew you would be soon, really immaterial since Myrtle would flood the bathroom and get your attention anyway, and flushed it down the cubicle she knew the dolt always hung around. Then it was simply a matter of his showing you all he needed to and her retrieval of the diary from your dorm.  
  
"She was so terrified when it fell out of your bag on Valentine's Day and Draco almost took it - him she *couldn't* get it back from. She couldn't have cared less that you knew it was her who sent the Valentine, she was simply on the verge of heart failure over what had almost happened- it would have ruined everything. But you got it back, and she retrieved it from your quarters as planned, being sure to leave the place ravaged to make you think it was a crazed attacker who had ransacked the room in search of it. . . "  
  
The remainder of the story did not need to be explained - he remembered it all to well from his own point of view. They sat in silence for a moment, her position now seated on the floor, leaned against the wall beneath the window and bracing her knees to her chest, mouth buried in her sleeves and eyes that refused to reveal her fear intently watching the raspy carpet as she let him decide when to begin the flow of time again.  
  
He sat in a sort of coma for a few minutes, but finally felt his stunned heart begin to slowly beat again. A slight and somewhat grimacing smile reached his face as well, the floundering result of an attempt to keep his mouth from saying something he would regret, and trepidation that she might not be finished.  
  
It was then of no concern as she recognized his partial thaw, crawled across the room and hugged him for dear life, never wanting to let go, not yet wanting to look him in the eye. It was with impeccable timing at that very moment that the butterbeer she had ordered for eight o'clock arrived. She retrieved it from Madame Rosmerta at the door, utilizing her keen acting skills to have a light and happy momentary conversation. She returned to the room and her real facial expression and handed him the first pint, a small itch of humor tickling the back of her mind at the deity-thanking look on his face for the miracle of alcohol. They silently sipped the liquid paradise for several minutes, imbibing just enough to loosen their spirits without truly interfering with their minds; each was petrified of what may come out of their own mouths.  
  
He knew that there was more, but also sensed that it involved the exposure of something deeper, something that was an infinite source of self-loathing for her. . . and something else. Her fear was palpable, but she need not have experienced it. He loved her too much to ever feel anything else, no matter what she had done or felt or planned in her past. Once his mind had absorbed the facts of the matter and purged all of the emotions involved, he would move on as he had done so many times before. He knew her in the here and now, and that was all that would ultimately matter to him. He would later think in retrospect how grateful he was for this night; far too many parts of his life's pasts had been shrouded in mystery- his soul was weary of lurching revelations rocking his world as soon as he had built it around false truths. He would also realize upon reflection that her knowledge of and respect for that fact were responsible for her timing. She could not reveal her past and expose the core of her soul to him until they had reached the levels of trust and oneness that they had achieved together then, but she also knew the devastation to be had were she to wait even another month, to wait until she was his wife; the keeper of his soul, only to have him learn that he knew nothing of the creation of hers. He needed to know, now.  
  
There were several empty moments before he decided with uninhibited conviction to press on; to make her understand that he needed to hear. She could almost hear the gears working in his head as he stumbled with the wording to his first question- "Gin, why. . .? How. . .?" She shrank away and addressed him almost formally before returning to her station on the floor under the window: "You're wondering how the first thing I told you fits into all of this, aren't you?" It was more a statement than a question, and he knew he needn't answer it. She attempted to explain, slowly and deliberately relaying what understanding of him could be had with mere words.  
  
"The first thing you have to understand is the kind of bond we had. Actually, the first thing is what kind of person he was. He completes you. He captivates you. He didn't need the Imperius to control his followers. He didn't even need to control them. Once he explained something, it was crystal clear. He would bring everything you ever wanted to be out in you and truthfully, dutifully promises everything you desire, and you know he is capable of giving it to you. And he would ask for nothing in return but your love, your loyalty, your trust. And you give it, you would even if he hadn't asked, for there is a pull about him that defies the will of wizards. The effortless magic that is Tom Marvolo Riddle."  
  
She paused momentarily, wondering how to express what she needed to before softly, thoughtfully going on. "He was ambitious, cunning, aristocratic. . . in personal style if not lifestyle. . . everything the heir of Slytherin should be, yet also instilled with a keen sense of honor. He would never have cursed you behind your back, he would never have shot at the count of two. He would never have cared about worldly standards like money in judging a person. He would never have killed without a reason, even if it existed only in his own mind. And he would never, *ever* have raped a woman." The look that then flashed across her face was an odd mixture of lingering anger at his earlier suggestion of said atrocity to her lost lover's memory and sheer fervor to impress the point- it was a key and sacred foundation of her Tom's character, with a far higher significance than Harry could currently understand. The moment lingered, then was finally dismissed by her breaking of their eye contact.  
  
She then softly continued "I was a part of him, just as he was a part of me. We needed each other to survive, mentally . . . and in the end physically. I would never be alone again as long as I lived, because I would always have him, in my mind and my heart if not physically at my side. I was constantly aware of his presence, as he was aware of my soul. He was the only person who truly understood me, the old me or the new, the lighter or the darker. And I loved him. I loved everything about him; his manner, his mind, his soul, his intangible flavor that was infused into every facet of his being, even his handwriting. . . and I know for an undeniable fact that it was not an illusion or girlish crush, nor was he pretending in order to use me, because it worked. Because he came back.  
  
"He had cast the Animo Amororis on the diary - that was how he arose. An ancient and mostly forgotten spell, it's based on mutual love; the ultimate magic. And the only way to revive a memory. For love is the only affair of so basic a creature as humans that deals with so deep a metaphysical plane that it is powerful enough to contend with time, death, even existence itself. But as with all so complex forms of magic, the powers of only one soul can not execute it. He could never have come into even transphasic existence if he hadn't told me his secrets, given me pieces of his soul as well. My love would never have been powerful enough to resurrect him if he hadn't loved me enough to deserve and complete the resurrection. I'm still not sure how Lucius knew that I was the one . . . Even if he had been writing to Tom and found out what he wanted in a woman, which I doubt since he never mentioned having such discussions with anyone, almost none of it was even remotely evident in me then. Maybe it was just a wild gamble when the opportunity presented itself. Certainly one that paid off. Merlin knows that love is far too magical a thing to ever be achieved with planning."  
  
She temporarily drifted off, her mind again latching onto a diversion from the moment, taking comfort in a train of thought that had become routine for it. She realized the need of her continuance, however, and went on, not daring to look up at him.  
  
"I had respected Tom instantly- to not would have been impossible. By Halloween, I felt the deepest friendship for him, and was amazed by the feeling of power and oneness when he projected his conscious into me to open the chamber the first time and establish communication with the basilisk. But then, towards the middle of November, real feelings began to stir in me. They were like nothing I had ever felt before, yet not foreign somehow. They were supposed to be there, just as much as my hair was supposed to be red. By December, we were both behaving strangely. The first few emotional links we had were full of the strange feelings, the odd urges. He was the one to mention them first, of course. Then, in the beginning of January, we finally realized that we were in love with each other. As soon as it was said, it was obvious. We were like a single person by the time we began our real plans for the chamber, and for you. Emotions of the other were constantly sensed and thoughts were a mere matter of concentration away from telepathy, and both bonds exponentially increased as he became stronger; as time and our feelings advanced.  
  
"That was how he signaled me when he was finished with you after I had planted the diary in Myrtle's lavatory. He met you, led you down our diversionary path, had me come get him, and then we began to prepare for the night of the chamber. I wrote the last message on the wall a few hours before it was found, and entered the chamber to wait for you as planned. He had yet to explain how he would transfer from the transphasic state to become real, though. He was about to, a month or so before, but he never finished. That was the night we discovered each other's ages.  
  
"He began telling me how much he loved me, how much he cared, how much he needed me. When I told him I felt the same, loved him more than he could imagine, he utilized the delicate loving manner he reserved for personal declarations to say that I didn't quite understand- he needed me to live, literally. 'You are a virgin', he wrote. No question mark, but no period either. A piece of common knowledge to be added to once I responded, but I didn't- I froze for a moment at the odd comment. He felt my uneasiness and said 'It is quite understandable, as you are as pure, noble, and self- respecting a girl of sixteen as I have ever met.' I was confused, because in all of the memories he had ever shown me he was no more than what I took to be a mature thirteen. I thought rather than wrote back to him that I wasn't sixteen. Was that how old he was? He said yes, then genuinely inquired if I was fifteen or seventeen. My hand has never shaken more in my entire life than when I wrote the word twelve on that piece of paper. Then it was his turn to freeze.  
  
"It was almost an entire minute before he responded 'I did not know.' That's why he never treated me like the rest of them did; he didn't know how old I was. He changed the subject after that, very slowly and carefully skirting the issue as he was so skilled at doing. He never brought it up again, never even mentioning our plan to go into the chamber again- I always had to bring it up to get him to plan the preparations with me. When we arrived that night, though, I knew what needed to be done. He never asked me to do anything. He never explained how it had to be accomplished, I just knew, I understood. The natural order of life and death, of male and female. The only interaction with that deep medium that humans are capable of. And I needed it to live too, or at least the part of me he had awoken did. He never made me do anything. I walked into the chamber and lay the diary down, open to the last page I had been writing on as he had instructed, and he told me to go around the side of one of the statues; there would probably be a flash of light, and he was worried it might blind me. When it was dark again, I heard his voice call to me, not inside my head, but in my ears for the first time."  
  
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She sat on the damp stone of the floor behind the nearest pillar, knees to her chest and eyes in her sleeves as the coming forth began. As soon as the flash was over, she knew he was there. She could feel his presence, more powerfully than ever before. Her instincts were fighting each other, the old parts of her somewhat frightened, the new elated, the both thrilled by the energy and expectation of seeing the man she loved in human form at last. It was then that he called out to her, his voice containing the same anxiousness she felt. As she slowly crept out from behind the mock reptilian pillar, her shoe struck a pebble that proceeded to skitter across the chamber and inform him of her position. He had heard the noise and whipped around to face her by the time she emerged and looked at him, then slowly walked toward him as he stood stalk still on the spot he had materialized on. She reached him an eternity later, standing with their thumping chests only inches apart. He had a physical presence from the exchange of souls, he was solid, but he wasn't real yet. The spark that is true life wasn't within him, yet.  
  
They stood for a moment, simply gazing at one another, occasionally allowing their eyes to fall and absorb the entire image of their completor. After several minutes of this optical caress and loving assessment, his eyes slowly trailed down her arm to her hand. He then brought his own from its statuesque position at his side to meet hers, gently touching her fingertips, one by one aligning their touchpads, then undersides of fingers, then heels of their hands, locking them in a palm kiss that felt united by a metaphysical cement binding them together. Her opposite hand gracefully claimed his in the same fashion, leaving them with the faint electricity of life crackling between them. They could now effortlessly hear every one of the other's thoughts, but both sets were consumed by the moment. He felt her wish, her total lack of fear, and slightly smiled, replying that he loved her, loved her thought process. Even her ingeniously skewed thought process.  
  
At that moment, they kissed- no one moved first, no one suggested or even thought about it first, it was simply the liquid conclusion of the moment. As the flaming lock deepened, they slowly slid their hands up each other's arms, ending in a desperate embrace as their mouths melded into sweet unity. The intangible charge increased between them, gaining momentum and strength with each circuit of their linked beings. It played upon endless nerves, plucking drawing from each the beginnings of the exchange- the melodious life-giving symphony to come.  
  
Their hands remained plastered to the other's form, both knowing it would be physically impossible to force them to leave the other body until the unification was fulfilled. The kiss slowed, then stopped. As she looked in his eyes, she found herself lowering in front of him, intertwining their fingers as she did so. She used his grasp to support her weight, shifting back to lie on the frigid floor, knees still raised and willingly yielding his width as her extended arm's grip demanded he shift forward onto the flagstone with her. His knees found contact with the ancient foundation directly between her own, and her arms then fell back onto the solid cold, the rest of his body then using the pivot point of their united hands to lower onto her form as they fervently kissed once more. The natural path followed, the only remaining border between them was finally ripped down, absolute circulation was then granted to the force guiding them, through the most potent of couplings humanly possible.  
  
When it was complete they lay exhausted, but only for a moment; as soon as the joining was complete and the joyous charge had completely washed through them a very similar but infinitely more powerful sort of energy began to build within her. Catalyzed by the presence of its carnal cousin and needy pull of his soul, it wrapped within it her very essence, then jolted into his exhausted body. He reacted as though he had been struck by lightning, convulsing before collapsing again, now lank and desperately inhaling all that his lungs could hold, struggling to survive. As he laboriously sucked for strength, she felt her own drain with every breath. She was being drawn on, giving to him what the nervous electricity of the powers had somehow tangibly seized and formed an invisible tap into; her life. He was breathing lungfulls not of air, but of existence. The transfer had begun.  
  
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"It only barely even hurt, he was so gentle and careful. Then what came after . . . It was so odd at the time. I was never frightened, just slightly surprised. I had never even heard the word and was experiencing it. But it was normal, I was safe. It was the entire point, because it began the shift."  
  
His reaction to this particular piece of information was far more internally violent than anything he had yet heard; first love was a force that none could control and in all fairness she hadn't been his either, and the physical act was the inescapable need of the magic to be achieved. But the idea that another had bestowed her first real pleasure was intolerable to his mind, clawing for definition of territory in the matter of the woman that he loved. His stomach churned and ire pooled below the surface as he listened to her go on.  
  
"He took me to the base of the statue as soon as he was strong enough and put me back down on my side. He was so gentle, knowing how drained I was, carefully turning my torso to be nearly front-down on the swell of the stone foot, so I would look face down and distressed when you arrived. Then, from somewhere, he had a bowl of water and a rag. That's the memory I kept the most dear and vivid about the whole thing: him just cooling my face and neck, all the while speaking to me in that beautiful voice . . . talking about our meeting, how much he loved me, our plans, our lives, our children. How he would reverse the energy flow when he was real and I was nearly gone - just before I entered the limbotic existence he had been in at the beginning. He spoke soothingly, but I felt a surge of worry from him - he started thinking on how he could know the precise moment it happened and not waste time. I knew that he was worried that if I was left for too long that there would be no way to revive me, I might die completely. Just the utter hollowness and pain he felt at the concept made me realize all over again how much he loved me.  
  
"I used our bond instead of my voice to speak to him, and though it was less of a strain than speaking it still took effort so he told me to stop. It was then that the 'conversation' shifted to my listening to his mind, musical in its inscribed orderliness. He just thought to and ran the water over me for what seemed like hours, I have no idea how long, really. After a while, he said that soon the name Ginny Weasley would be dead, and Virginia Riddle would rise to her place . . . as his wife. It was then that he slipped the ring on my finger. It fit perfectly . . . two pewter Ouroboros snakes, eating their own tails and overlapping under my finger to make the circle of the ring, their flows in opposite directions so their nearly triangular heads interlocked. Their eyes made a neat little line of four emeralds, with their long silver tongues darting out in flourishes all around it. It was so beautiful to me then.  
  
"He hugged me to him as tightly as possible, and I just cried in his robes. He kissed my hair and laid me back down like I had been, and suddenly I was even more exhausted. He just kept running the water and his hands over me . . . 'This will all be over soon, darling, all over soon. I'll be real, I'll reverse the shift so we're both real and half-energized, we'll be normal in a day, and then we'll take our places. It will all be over soon, my heiress.' It was then that we heard you open the sink portal, and both knew he had to make me look dead. He took several deep breaths in a row, and I deflated to the point of being only faintly aware through fuzzy sounds around me and his mind; I couldn't even move, let alone think strait.  
  
"He must have arranged my robes and brushed my hair across my face, then taken the bowl to hide it behind the pillar with him as he waited for you. I barely heard your footsteps running to me, saw you shake me through his eyes, felt his surge of angered fear that you might shake too hard and hurt me, but I never felt you touch me. When he was telling you that he used me, when he said that he seduced and controlled me, mocked me and pretended not to care in the slightest, it was agony for him. I worked up enough strength to think to him that I understood, and that made it easier. But you never saw a falter, because he was a consummate actor- well trained in mental reservation to fuel the sincerity of lies; Ginny Weasley *would* be dead.  
  
"I wanted to follow him willingly as far as the rest of the world was concerned, but he insisted I leave my life and name behind - the woman I was then wasn't that girl anymore. And he would not have even her name remembered with disdain by anyone. And . . . everything happened. Afterwards, I spent six weeks wracked with the worry, the pain, the joy and heartache I had just been through, even more difficult to deal with because he wasn't there. I was lost as my old self again- he had been the vital silent piece of the logical machine my mind had become. And the next six weeks . . . I spent waiting. I told myself that since he wasn't 'real' yet, it couldn't be. But if there was one thing that I learnt form him, it is that boundaries exist to be broken- and magic's boundaries are the most intriguing, the least defined, and the most feared. One never knows with magic. And Merlin knows that he had unlocked kinds that most thought were impossible. When I woke up that horrible morning, I let out one burst of laughter and then cried for three days strait."  
  
It was at this point that her emotions were caught up in the ghost reality of her story, beginning silent rivers down her cheeks. "Why? Why did he have to stop at *that* boundary? How could he have left me alone like that?" She now broke out sobbing into her hands, reliving the morning in horrid detail after dredging up the events, her composure weakened by the butterbeer and fear.  
  
A shell-shocked and entirely instinct driven Harry instantly crossed the room to her, his brain acknowledging only the fact that his Gin was hurting, to hell with why. But when he reached her, began to pull her to him, she lunged away as though he were trying to murder her. Her sobs heaved more and more heavily as she stood facing the corner next to the door, as far away from him as possible in the room that had become their universe. He stood and tried again, not letting her escape as she struggled to leave him "No, I don't deserve it!" "Of course you do, you deserve the world . . ." "No, I don't, I don't deserve anything, I don't deserve you!" "What could ever make you think that?" "Because of what I felt!" At this she succeeded in breaking free of his grip and retreated to the nail-marked bedpost next to the window, leaving him afraid to move. "Because of what she felt" came her defeated voice, before her body slid down the post to the floor, hugging her knees once again.  
  
He cautiously approached her, placing only a gentle hand on her shoulder, daring not to say a word. She reeled, digging for the best possible delay to not have to assault him further that night. Her rare and obvious flounder was punctured, however, when he found his voice for the simple, boring utterance - "Gin." She went limp under his touch, giving in to the part of her that knew this entire episode was truly over the single fact he wanted.  
  
"To be a part of someone, to love them and need them on every level of the word. To have what we have." She looked deep within his eyes at the statement, trying desperately to enforce what was the current fact of their relationship and the fact that she was indeed his, landmark romantic frontiers forged together or not. He silently lied that he was fine and urged her to go on,  
  
"People search their entire lives for something like that, and I had it at twelve. I had it, and I had it ripped away in one minute. When you pushed that fang through the diary, I felt the venom in my veins, too. As he disappeared, so did that part of me that he occupied, the part he had awakened. The part that dreamed of snuggling into his chest as they sat on their thrones. I was being ripped in half, my lover was being destroyed, and I couldn't even form an expression to show the pain. All she wanted was to scream his name, but he couldn't even hear her in his mind, he was already so eaten away. And as he fought to move forward, as he collapsed on the ground and disintegrated, his last desperate thought to her was 'I love you'. When I first rewoke, I could still feel her. Still feel the echo of who he had made me. And when I saw you, the man who had ripped everything she had and could ever hope for away, for a split second, the echo of her hated you. She loathed you with every fiber in her being for taking her Tom away from her. But she faded away, like echoes always do, and I was left with just me.  
  
"I had woken up and seen you as soon as he was gone, the instant it was over. I watched you pull the sword out of the basilisk, trying to think of what to do. I knew I had to continue the lie that he was controlling me, to honor him and protect myself, and realized the breakfast when I tried to tell you about Percy was a perfect way to have tried to confess to you. Then everything that had happened began to sink in, and I began to realize what I had truly done- what could have happened. Everything after saying that he forced me was genuine; I couldn't believe you'd killed the basilisk, and I suddenly realized that I would surly be expelled from Hogwarts, the one place I had most wanted to be all of my life, and what about my parents? They would be so ashamed, even by the cover story that I was overtaken by so silly a thing as a diary. I was so sorry for the people I hurt, for you - but I couldn't feel sorry for loving him, or not feel the pain of losing both him and a piece of myself in the process. And I couldn't just *stop* loving him.  
  
"Everything that I felt for him was rooted in who I used to be; in the first admiration and thirst for him that even my original self had. Even she had fallen in love with him, on far more childish levels, beneath the surface and unnoticed. I couldn't deal with him suddenly not being there and having a hole left in my heart like that. I just couldn't. And I couldn't excuse, or explain, or forget that for one instant a part of me hated you. For more than a year afterwards I couldn't even look you in the eye without feeling the stab of monumental guilt for that one instant. Some days I still can't. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you . . . " She then dove into his arms, feverishly repeating the mantra over and over. He had never seen her like this - she had always been a doormouse that he hadn't known, or the strong and self-controlled woman that he currently did. He softly rocked her, not wanting to insult her with too much coddling, but still understanding, all be it in shock from everything that had transpired.  
  
He knew that she loved him and understood how she could think that she had betrayed him, but she was a different person during that one moment- and it was just one moment, years before their hearts had even fathomed each other. He didn't believe in holding the uncontrollable from one's past against anyone, and could never hold anything against her. And though he could not feel sorry for the echo who had hated him, he also could not blame her. He had in essence done to her what Voldemort had done to him- ripped away the foundation of her life, everything she could ever hope for, any possibility of the natural stability that she dreamt of, and in the sense that Tom had helped create her, he had also killed her parent. He couldn't hate her, and he could *never* hate the being she had inhabited.  
  
He could only hope that his soothing rock and muttered nothings in her ear were enough to communicate that to said being. He knew they were when she finally stopped crying an hour later, the sky now reflecting the deep velvet black of their reality with shining pinpricks of possibility and hope piercing through weak points in the bleakness.  
  
~*~*~*~ 


	3. Chapter 3: Serpentine Lord

DISCLAIMER : All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.  
  
A/N : Here comes the second reason it's rated R: This chapter is the one that talks about the rape; it's not graphic, just known, and if the subject really disturbs you you can just skip the bit between the ^^^^^ memory borders. You've been warned.  
  
And now, on with the show:  
  
~ Chapter 3 : Serpentine Lord ~  
  
He kissed the tears off of her cheeks, despite how superficial he had always considered the gesture to be, and it comforted her as intended. She regained some of her composed personality and went on, as if mere seconds had passed.  
  
"I couldn't cope, I couldn't slide back into my old life. I could *never* completely slide back into my old self- he had effected me far too much and too deeply for that. I had to find a new me; one rooted in my original self, but still had the raw knowledge and understanding of the world that being a part of him gave me. I remember the night you proposed to me, you told me that story about how your best friend's little sister left to never come back the year of the tournament, and the next you went to school to find this girl named Virginia Weasley who actually talked around you and replaced you as seeker and knew how to push her brothers' buttons. You don't know how right you were. I had only come to something like harmony that summer before at Grimmauld Place. I don't know why it was so helpful, I guess it was the confined existence that we had. And it almost helped that mum wouldn't let me know anything - I didn't know how worried I should have been. Not to mention having girls to talk to for a change, and playing with Crookshanks and aimlessly thinking all afternoon before we really began the restorations. I managed to collect myself into a single, more confident person who could into the world again. Still fairly confused, but no more so than any fourteen year old. Same situation, just different reasons behind it."  
  
A momentary pause demanded he ask what had been plaguing him for the last several minutes "Baby, why didn't you ever tell any of this to any of us? Any of it, to your family, or to me and Ron at the least? I mean, we'd understand . . . even just the fact that you were struggling, without anything about Riddle?" She smiled momentarily, but regarded the question seriously, having asked herself many times. "You can't tell me that at the time you and Ron would have been interested in listening to my problems, especially during all the stress that you were under both years over Sirius and the tournament." She was right, and he was somewhat humbled, but she had communicated with her tone that it was nothing to be ashamed of; they had been thirteen and fourteen year old boys, and he was genuinely under amazing amounts of stress every year he had spent at Hogwarts, his third through fifth especially, simply because he wasn't used to the state yet. He then wondered if she had ever told *any*one. She seemed to hear his thoughts, and answered the question before he could ask it - "I never told anyone anything about it - I knew that it would be impossible *to* tell anyone anything without explaining about Tom and me's relationship and my willingness in it, or the other things that kept me back in my second and third years. And I was afraid that they would think that I had fallen in love with Lord Voldemort. Or worse, still felt that way about purebloodedness- that the piece of me he created was still there- that I'd grow up to be a Death Eater, or at least was a danger to be involved in anything secure against the Dark Arts. They would think that, and I wouldn't be able to control myself. You can't tell me that until now, until this point in our relationship and everything I've done for our side, that it wouldn't have made even you look at me twice before deciding to trust me with anything. I hate the wretched, murdering creature that is Lord Voldemort just as much as any auror, just as much as Moody, just as much as you. I loved Tom . . . his younger, somehow not yet poisoned brother.  
  
"I also knew that if I told anyone about the night in the chamber that there would be no way to convince them that I hadn't been forced, and I couldn't let them think that about him. It would have been a violation to everything he was, every shred of honor in him that I loved. And everyone would feel so *sorry* for me, thinking that my virginity was taken from me. It wasn't. And I'm glad I had already given it, because that meant it wasn't there to actually be stolen by a thieving Malfoy like it would have been if I hadn't . . . " .  
  
He nearly attacked her for further information when she paused after the earth-shattering statement- he was absolutely sure that either he had heard wrong, or would be a murderer by morning. Before he could open his mouth, however, she fixed him with a steely glare that impressed more than any words could that she had no intention of changing the conditions put forward at the beginning of this; she would tell her story in the order she wanted. She took a deep breath and continued, proceeding with the events in chronological rather than demanded order.  
  
"The main reason it took me so long to get over the whole thing was the dementors. I had gotten myself to good levels of normalcy to keep anyone from being suspicious or worrying about me, and was beginning to really get over him- just thinking how proud of myself I was for it, in fact, when they boarded the train. When it came into the compartment I felt like I was drowning in freezing water, but then realized it was numbing liquid memories. It was the day at Diagon Alley in Flourish and Blotts before I found the diary, it was writing twelve, it was feeling hate towards you. And because I was forced to remember those, when they were gone I could voluntarily remember the rest; the love, our plans, lying as he spoke to me with his mind and cooled me with the rag, the ring. I tormented myself with them, intentionally approaching to offer myself as prey and remember with them, the ring on its chain around my neck. I would gush into a diary afterwards, writing barely discernible through the tear splotches, but that didn't matter- it was for him.  
  
"I told myself that he was receiving it and feeling with me just as he always did, even from a plain parchment book. That my heart was the transmitter, never really the diary. I did it all year, until the summer finally came, and they were gone- which meant that my portal to the past was shut, and I had to deal with even the vividest memories of everything being taken away from me. The same wounds, even worse for being ripped open after healing halfway. I couldn't let go again. I went on writing, and kissed the ring and told him I loved him every night, as though he were lying next to me. By the next year, my habits were set- I was in total denial, that's why I seemed so happy and normal. It wasn't until two days after the Yule ball that it broke, that he broke it for me."  
  
Her eyes shifted up to nervously meet him, petrified of his reaction. "It was late. I can't even remember why I was at the owlry . . . sending a letter home, I guess. He caught me just as I left, in the deserted hallway." She again became fascinated by her hands, now perched on her knees, which as she spoke subtly pressed more and more firmly together.  
  
"I don't know why he was even in the school at all . . . probably harassing Dumbledore or panicing with Karkaroff. Horrible tongue up the side of my face while I was pinned up against the wall, my wand six feet away, a quietus on my voice so no one could hear my screams but him. That horrible hissing voice . . .".  
  
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She had never appreciated the solitude of the outlying towers. Letters of the ball and excited updates on the impending task had long since been sent, leaving the corridor just below the owlry empty but for the alert hoots of the nocturnal occupants of the spire. The stone softly rang in slight ghostly awareness of her presence with each of her footfalls, vacantly venturing back toward the warmth and familiarity of the main castle.  
  
She had only barely begun on her path, however, when her internal detection of the dark - alarming sensors to the presence of another that her lover had instilled within her - began to stir. She slowed and halted, concentrating every sense she had on the hall behind her, unquestionably the source of the disturbance. The sensation then weakened, and she dismissed it as nerves. She proceeded, but the tickle of suspicion resumed with her. She now coiled in readiness of the undeniable intruder, noiselessly turning to explore the hall and withdrawing her wand in anticipation of danger. The presence steadily grew, but then shifted to her right and diminished; her foreigner had apparently chosen a different corridor. Calmed, she turned to continue, only to find her freckle-dusted nose not six inches away from the silk-encased chest of a smirking Lucius Malfoy.  
  
Too near her target to protect herself, she instantly leapt backward to achieve a more effective range, but found her wand wrist seized in his surprisingly mighty satin-gloved hand before she even saw it stir from the side of his otherwise statuesque form. The shock momentarily froze her, but was shattered by his milky formal intonement-  
  
"Ms. Weasley."  
  
She heard the clatter of her wand hitting the stone foundation and felt the ripping cold of the granite wall against her back long before any reaction was possible. He had her suspended a clear foot off of the ground, having lifted her via her left armpit and then twisted her wand hand to replace his own beneath it, forcing the instrument's release and gnarling her wrist against the wall. Her wand arm twisted practically out of the socket across her chest, his own forearm contacting hers and applying the force necessary to keep her pressed to the wall with an alarmingly small amount of effort. His shin flat against the stone between her legs prevented her lower torso's moving, and her shoulder was left at so odd an angle from supporting the hanging of her body weight upon it that had she seen it wise to manipulate her left arm, she most probably could not. Their eyes now level, she was presented with the steely calm of his, inches from her own, as he continued as though they were still standing politely in the hall-  
  
"I desire some conference with you."  
  
His command of the situation came not from his effortless and total physical control of her, but rather the commanding presence and sheer danger of unthinkable retribution that he exuded. She dared not move a muscle or produce a sound, nor would she have attempted to after her initial instinctual lurch were they still standing normally in the corridor.  
  
"You see, some time ago, I entrusted you with a task upon which the very future of wizard kind rested" he coolly went on, his misplaced formality ringing in every word. "An incredible responsibility, but which I was and am very aware that you were completely capable of carrying out. But you let your feelings cloud your judgment. You neglected any protection, the need for which being hazed by your confidence in him, and yourself. You did nothing to safeguard the diary, nothing to detain Potter before the night, nothing at all but scrawling on a wall, killing a few birds and giving your body to him, which were only performed because they required so little effort on your sniveling part. Were it not for your childish selfishness, impotence, and utter idiocy, he would have arisen. We would be in control. Wizard kind would have been freed of the mud poisoning it, and *I* would be free of this ridiculous facade as we speak."  
  
He paused for a moment, a slivered grin of pleasure sliding across his lips as his piercing tone drove his next statement into her ears like the knife it drove through her heart-  
  
"And what would have been your husband would still be alive."  
  
He moved his head back to its original distance from her own, having shifted it closer and closer as he spoke, and looked deep with in her, awaiting his reward. He waited for the rift to open, for her childish emotions to surface, reminding him that he was again in total control of her - the single person since the master of so long ago who's actions he had not anticipated and had rendered him powerless to alter a situation - and enabling him to relish the fact. But as he watched her, he found instead a monumental resolve bubbling in her eyes, as though being channeled from some external life-giving source.  
  
"No."  
  
The tone of her voice was that of complete confidence and power, of complete control- as though it were she pinning *him* to the wall with strength and fear.  
  
"It is your fault. The task required resources to carry out properly, without the possibility of defeat. As a mere first year, I had no connections, no alliances to cover my trail, no knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the staff and school itself, no power over others, no real knowledge of magic to aid him in any of the incantations that could have protected us or increased the rate of his ascension to shorten the time of our vulnerability. I still would have been malleable enough at this point in my life, and vastly more capable. You gave it to me too soon."  
  
Her tone assumed some level of only minorly condescending respect now, a teacher understanding an errant student's thinking-  
  
"But even if you had realized that, perhaps your thought was that Potter too would develop, and it was therefore safer the earlier in life the task was for *him*."  
  
The bite of venomous condescension returned, however, at her next statement:  
  
"But even that couldn't have been your logic, for were then you would have enlisted Draco to assist me; to use his own resources in our interest, to occupy Potter while the ascension was taking place and the lord was most vulnerable. You would have done something to protect us, had you utilized the intelligence you so clearly possess but are for some infuriating reason capable only of selfishly exercising."  
  
He stood at that moment not before her, but his childhood master; his mentor and tormentor who had changed him from the uncertain and highly volatile young man he began as into the creature of forethought and cunning that was currently Lucius Malfoy. The same scolding arrogance, shrinking him within his shell, stoking the same flames of anger and rebellion that had driven him to work so long and hard for clarity; for his invincible frost, fed by maniacal control of others and the resulting turn about of power. But deep within still lurked the heart of fire, now set to beating once again by the surface personae's failure, result of the absence of fuel for the carefully balanced and maintained mechanism.  
  
So unfamiliar and explosive was the complete resumption of this fevered temperament that he lashed out in sheer hatred, despite the intimidation of the being in front of him that was spurning the reaction, screaming for perhaps the first time in almost seventeen years. She received the full brunt as he slammed her into the wall repeatedly, mindlessly demanding her silence. The outburst finally succeeded in exhausting most of his anger, and he stopped mid-thrust, staring only at the floor for a moment. Control regained to physical levels, he lifted his smooth, groomed head which had somehow retained all of its own composure and bored into her now again thirteen-year-old and petrified eyes with his own as he restrained his voice to speak, resulting in a far more dangerous sound than even the ranting of a moment before.  
  
"You never dare speak to me in that manner again. NO ONE speaks to me in that manner!!! YOU . . . you . . . "  
  
The residual anger subsided, giving in to his new identity, powered by sheer will, as he seemed to only now recognize the person he had shifted the unused arm to enact a one-handed strangle hold on. His eyes glinted with conviction and voice returned to its characteristic drawl as his mind began to assess the situation-  
  
"You . . . child."  
  
Steely cold eyes then ignited in determination as the strangling hand sharply pulled her head towards him to receive the full impact of his menace and impress the point.  
  
"*Child*."  
  
The same scolding arrogance, but in a form that could be conquered. Revenge not just for her own crimes against him, but every memory of that arrogance making him feel inadequate. Like a barely tolerated and expendable pawn. Like a child pinned to a wall.  
  
Domination of this unruly underling *would* be his.  
  
~*~  
  
It was only as he dropped her to the ground, silent and defeated, that it occurred as an afterthought what a supreme domination of yet another this was, all the more exquisite for their ignorance of it. The superior sneer to grace his face on the next occasion he chanced to encounter Arthur Weasley would indeed be spectacular.  
  
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A single tear ran down her face, not of sadness or pain, but sheer anger. "He didn't just violate my body, he violated my soul. He forced himself into my *mind*. He used the Imperius to open my eyes, and then Legilimency to pull everything out of me. He had every memory and every feeling and every secret and everything that made me who I was until that moment. He had my pain, he took my joy, he took everything. He knew every lie I had ever told, that I stole a galleon's worth of candy when I was six, what my grandfather called me when no one else was around. He knew what I . . . " She stopped momentarily, clutching her face in her hands and collecting before going on, again stable. "He took everything, everything that even you don't know, that no one else knows because they *aren't supposed to*.  
  
"He never kissed me, thank Merlin, or even really touched me but to pin me, just ripped the middle out of my knickers and did it. He threatened to Avada me and destroy my family if I told anyone when he was finished, but even if he hadn't, I never would. You know I deal with stuff best while it's all in my head, all in my control to see and understand and cope with, and being alone in the beginning helps.  
  
"I ran through the corridors to the tower, but when I finally got there I couldn't bear to go in. Being with my friends and in my own bed would have made it hurt worse, so I just curled up on the floor in front of the Fat Lady, and balled myself as tightly as I could, trying to seal off the hole in my heart that I felt like anyone could come along and crawl into. The only thing that could ever do that, though, was Tom. He would have made it all right, he would have loved me and held me and never let me go until everything was fine, then Crucio the bastard until he was insane and lock him in Azkaban for me. No one else loved me like that then. Everyone would have been upset because their friend was raped, their sister was raped, their daughter was raped, their student was raped, a human being was raped. But he would have been livid that *I* was raped, that Virginia Weasley had been violated. That the woman he loved by his own cognition for her faults and strengths was hurting. Me. Not a title, *me*.  
  
"I just wanted to crawl inside of him and bawl like a baby. Just see him, hold him one more time to make me feel better. To have anything of his, anything that could have even the ghost of him imprinted on it . . . the dead diary, a quill, a medal, his prefect badge, a wand, a *sock*. . . even something that belonged to the him that time kept hold of and grew up . . . I think I would have hugged Voldemort himself for dear life that night. And it was really because of that I was able to get over him. Wanting him and needing him so desperately that night, and realizing that he wasn't coming . . . that he would never come again. That made it sink in that he was dead, a memory, and that was all. He would never be there; he could never help or love me again.  
  
"I didn't sleep or eat or even really talk for three days after that, trying to accept the fact. But at the end of the third day, I took off the ring. It was only because I finally managed to do that and come to terms with everything over the rest of the year and at Grimmauld that I was able to move on, to become the girl you met who had put her past behind her, finally had a clue who she was and could be with someone else." She paused and internally chuckled for a moment at what had just entered her mind - "I wish I could have seen the look on Ron's face when Hermione told him I was dating Michael - it must have been priceless."  
  
Her attempt at lightening the subject was for naught, for the last half of her explanation had fallen on deaf ears; he was completely overcome with the rage and revenge that boiled within him, immeasurable, inexpressible, and above all unenactable. He had originally assumed that she meant the *living* Lord of Malfoy manor, not his since deceased predecessor. The anger could be bearable were it to have an outlet, an antagonist to be punished. But all possible punishment had been bestowed, and it was left with no direction but inward.  
  
"This is all my fault."  
  
Her shock at the statement would have knocked her to the floor were she not already on it, curled in a ball against the wall next to him as he sat leaned against it.  
  
"*What*?!?!"  
  
"It's all my fault. If I had just . . ."  
  
"If you had just what? Been a seer and known that any of this was going on? Followed me everywhere I went like a guard dog? Paid absolute attention to a girl you barely knew apart from the fact that she lived with your best friend and fancied you? And all that while your life was being threatened? You couldn't've done *anything*. No one could have."  
  
He finally looked her in the eye, and saw how mortified she was that she had caused him an unanticipated source of additional pain.  
  
"I had absolutely no idea that you would react this way. I never would have said . . . "  
  
"No. I'm glad that you told me. I'm glad that now I can understand you better."  
  
It seemed somewhat automatic, but she said nothing. He returned to a straightforward gaze that was focused only in his mind.  
  
"I just want to hurt him as badly as he hurt you . . . "  
  
"*Harry*"  
  
Her urgent tone snapped him back to the wonderland that was her eyes- "I need you to promise me that you won't take this out on Draco. *He* didn't rape me, his father did. He had nothing to do with it, and even if he wanted to change what happened, he couldn't. Don't."  
  
The look they exchanged was simple connection, a sheer understanding and emotion that words have not learned to relay.  
  
"I promise."  
  
She curled her head onto his chest and truly relaxed for the first time that night, aided by the hypnotic drum of his heartbeat. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and inhaled as though he had not breathed for several minutes, the warm results dissipating in the now still and tranquil room, shrouding them both in the protective buffer of sweet silence.  
  
~*~*~*~ 


	4. Chapter 4: Reluctant Solace

DISCLAIMER: All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.  
  
And now, on with the show:  
  
~ Chapter 4 : Reluctant Solace ~  
  
It was nearly an hour later that they were bullied into moving by their cramped, exhausted bodies, tentatively stretching and then drawn in the magnetism of the bed. They lay on their sides facing each other, he with his back to the room and trapping her against the wall in unconscious desire to protect her. His gaze was completely deflated; defeat and sorrow in an ocean of shock and furious upset. Far from being angry with her, he was simply furious with the situation he now found himself in as a whole, utter ambiguity filling him completely.  
  
The woman lying against him was his everything, the single person in his life he had ever let in deeply enough to truly love. Sirius and Remus he had admired and needed, Ron and Hermione he envied and just plain enjoyed, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley he adored, Dumbledore and Moody he respected and trusted implicitly, but his Gin he loved. She had been there for him for three years, to share and purge his pain with, to aid in his adventures and missions and be the stabilizing force he so desperately needed. She was his rock, his safe harbor. All he ever wanted was to be the same for her, and he had made every effort possible to return the life-giving favor.  
  
Yet here he was, discovering that for years she had wrestled with the secret pains that had now been splayed before him, the seal of time shutting out any possibility of help. Finding out that he hadn't been able to help her through it, that he wasn't there for her, forced to view the gnarling scars he was powerless to alter, he felt he had failed her.  
  
But his world too had been ravaged; the instrument of the scars had also taken *his* most precious and intangible possessions. He needed solitude. He needed company. He needed to walk. He needed to run. He needed silence. He needed noise. He needed to create. He needed to destroy. But first and foremost, he needed to reassemble to reassure her- to be her rock.  
  
He knew reassurance was to be best had by letting her know that this changed absolutely nothing. He softly spoke to the air that she happened to inhabit, forcing his body and vocal chords to replicate total apparent relaxation. He spoke of fluffy afternoons and sultry nights spent in each other's arms in the fantasy land of their imaginations that they often visited while sharing the haze of old fuzzed blankets and soft thin sheets of inn chambers. She understood as soon as he began, exhaling not only air but also all of the energy that had been drained by the ordeal but refused to leave in order to see her through.  
  
She knew, however, that he was forcing it; that the statements and intention were genuine but the delivery concocted to ease her back into life. But the fact that he cared for her so much to bother despite it all made her feel infinitely better than even if it were real. She then thought of the last person to do such a thing even remotely regarding the subjects of the night. She smiled - an odd reaction, she thought to herself, but that most hellish day was also the first instance of any level of regard (contrived or not) for another individual not of his own house that she had ever seen - few would follow in her four years in his realm. She could never tell Harry about it though - it would hurt him too badly to know that someone else had realized while he remained blind. But still she thought and deflatedly smiled.  
  
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The stabbing pains between her wrenched shoulder socket and jammed wrist that had been with her all night had finally begun to fade, excused by an accidental fall out of the portrait hole and appropriately tended by the school's resident Nightingale. For her more pressing and private injuries she had managed only a spell to put a stop to bleeding - taught by her mother in case of emergency - and the layering of some gauze (acquired in a rare absence of the nurse from the ward) to prevent any friction with her undergarments and be sure that no mistake in her spell casting could be detected.  
  
She had admirably suppressed the agony of said injuries, assaulted by searing waves, but showing no sign whatsoever through her numb but vigilant effort to constantly rove and therefore be everywhere and yet no where in the castle. She rarely passed others, and when she did would bustle past in silent pretending of incredible hurry. It was the best isolation that her healing conscious could muster, considering the fit to burst common rooms, recreational, and even academic areas of the school due to the over- populated break. She wandered through each hall of the castle, avoiding not only the corridor below the owlry, for obvious reasons, but also the unforgiving stone of the lower levels. It was the dank dungeons of her defense and potions studies that most potently reminded her of the sweeping lord of Malfoy manor, and would have been equally unbearable.  
  
She sensed the approach of another and instantly switched to the plan of escape, but found herself paralyzed in the stare of the single person who for reasons she had yet to understand surpassed even his dutiful son in her own mental association with the dreaded lord: Snape. As he came swooping around the corner, he suddenly seemed equally dumfounded by her; having stopped dead in his equal apparent hurry, he was now staring strait back at her, as though not having believed what he had seen upon his first assessment. She felt no fear, knowing it was pointless, but was generating the various conclusions he could be making from her unguarded eyes, and no possibility of what might happen next was at all appealing. An eternity later he still stood mesmerized, the look on his face containing both the disbelief of being presented with an extraordinarily rare item that he had not seen in numerous years, and a chill of horror - for said item was also inexpressibly dangerous.  
  
"Ms. Weasley. . . " His voice met her ears without its characteristic air of infinite control for the first time in her memory "You will accompany me to the dungeons. *Now*."  
  
As she followed his march into the flagstone and granite-lined bowls of the school, she could feel the lingering presence in her mind more and more vividly. She had always felt that the walls here had a deep power about them, as though they possessed an omnipotent knowledge of all that had ever occurred within them and were waiting only for the right moment to reveal their secrets. It was this quality that most reminded her of Lucius, and magnified her awareness as she descended into his element of dignified mire.  
  
Finally entering the main potions corridor spurned a quickly rejected plea from her instincts to run - she would be implicating herself as having committed some crime were she too (and for all she actually knew he could only suspect her in some prank that had taken place near the area that she was unaware of), not to mention the pain that simply walking at previous sweet pace produced, meaning any attempt to run would soon be stalled. Ignoring instinct and swallowing memory she continued with him at his own brisk speed until they reached a passcoded door and whisked inside.  
  
Long term potions were simmering about the counters, up on fires surrounded by temperature control bubbles (an advanced charm in itself - the work of no less than a sixth year or Ms. Granger), automatically telling her that they were extremely difficult and sensitive to error. The space was also far better maintained than any of the classrooms she had ever been inside of; the utilizers of this room had never melted a cauldron into the floor or spilt dragon blood on the counters. It was the classroom of advanced studies and N.E.W.T. level exercises; she had long wondered what it was like and hoped to see it one day, but under slightly different conditions.  
  
She stopped just past the first row of preparation tables, correctly guessing that she was not intended to follow him into to back chamber to which he seemed bound. She occupied herself with slowing her own thundering heartbeat, then noticed that the shelves of the hutches lining the back of the room behind the scribe-style desk housed numerous ingredients that would never be found in the average potions class. The preciousness and potential danger of the items increased as one neared the right hand corner - home to a large, heavy and most probably locked and warded mahogany chest which under any other circumstances she would have been itching to get into, but she was at present too involved in audially spying on the potions master.  
  
She waited as he purposefully opened a cabinet, removed what he desired and closed it again, then wrenched open a stubborn second that was left ajar for the duration of a pop and the sound of pouring liquid, then bubbling as though from carbonation and hinges squeaking as they were closed again. A new and larger door creaked open next, succeeded by the removal of several objects which were placed in a container that produced a dull metallic thud as they struck it. A tinkling came next, accompanied by a first increased and then dying fizzing sound, presumably stirring the gases out of the previously poured liquid. He then emerged, bearing an equipment-stuffed pewter cauldron under one arm and a lamely bubbling steel goblet in the opposing hand. He carefully placed the minorly rattling cauldron on a free stretch of counter at the left side of the room, then walked back to her and extended the goblet.  
  
"Drink."  
  
It was not a request. But still something prevented her from reaching for the proffered potion. Her lack of response was met with his jamming the vessel to her lips and forcing the tilt of her head to pour the sour frothy liquid down her throat. The drained goblet was then placed on the nearest table, to whom's most readily available chair he pointed and said in an equally un-requestive tone:  
  
"Sit."  
  
Her body greatly desired to do so and gave no argument, though the prospect of being gruffly seized and posed in the chair like a huge, irritating doll were she not to obey was no small motivator.  
  
He returned to the cauldron at the counter, removing the various devices and ingredients and placing it on a simmering stand. He then combined several of the ingredients, his back to her and blocking any view, but she was sure by the smell that he had used wolfsbane, as well as some amount of dragon's blood. Setting a high fire beneath it with his wand, he strode back over to the table at which he had ensconced her.  
  
He swiftly pulled out the chair across from her and swooped into it, halting in midair just before softly settling into the seat out of respect for the furniture. This sudden slowing of motion was also carried in his elbows' placement on the surface before him, hands intertwining as his face attempted find the proper expression for the question ahead - it settled upon the softest expression of respect for the person being addressed that it could muster. His voice was at its most silken, not for the purposes of intimidating the person addressed, but an effort to not.  
  
"Exactly how long ago did Lucius force himself on you?"  
  
Her jaw slacked with shock. How could he *possibly* have known, short of long suspected telepathic ability?  
  
"Well?"  
  
"Last night"  
  
"Have you addressed those injuries not excusable to Madame Pomphery?"  
  
"Yes . . ."  
  
His calmly blinking expression communicated that she was intended to elaborate - he was apparently offering some assistance in the area, and therefore required knowledge of previous efforts. This assumption was supported by her realization that since his forcing of the potion she had been in steadily less pain, warmed in the process.  
  
"A bleeding restrictor . . . and gauze to cushion things."  
  
His eyes closed momentarily, an unreadable expression on his face, and then opened as he returned to the cauldron and continued to go about preparation of an appropriate healing compound.  
  
The calling up of skills for the compound and the calculations necessary also brought the memories of the years in which he made it frequently, abandoned until now in lack of necessity. Most vivid was the image of the then-existent personality of his partner, apparently rediscovered. He had dealt with and secretly cared for more rape victims than he allowed himself to estimate, but Lucius' were always special. Even others who employed Legilimency to further invade their prey never quite reached the levels that he did, his indescribable fire somehow deepening the impact. They always had the same look, rooted in the blanket gaze of all so violated, but above and beyond it. He had known it instantly, even after seventeen years.  
  
"I assume that like all the others you have deemed it futile to report the incident and have no intention to do so?" The statement was spat with a permeating tinge of disgust, the object of which she could not discern. She softly answered to the positive, grateful to not have to look him in the eye as she did so; afraid to attract the predator. She then returned to studying the previously unnoticed and apparently fascinating anatomy of her own hands, clenched in her lap.  
  
He reminded himself to soften his demeanor, knowing that her actions were she not hollowly soothed would be unpredictable and possibly destructive. He then read her subconscious question, despite her intentioned passiveness.  
  
"No, you are not the first. The first in many years, but not the first."  
  
The completion of the brew and passage of an hour of warm silence found her standing as she was presented with the results and given instructions of its usage. She knew there was no pressure to respond to the information and turned to leave, but was called to a halt by his voice, having regained some tinge of its authority.  
  
"Ms. Weasley . . ."  
  
She stopped and turned, fearing the lashing would come at last; disappointment or aggression for some action, or more probably lack of action - but he surprised her.  
  
"Do remember where the room is. Your appreciation of potions as well as knowledge and precision in the art is quite outstanding - I have been meaning to engage you about joining my advanced studies course next year. I do not usually invite students until their fifth year, but I feel you would greatly benefit from the proper environment and appreciate the privilege."  
  
"Yes . . . Thank you, professor."  
  
"Ms. Weasley . . ."  
  
She turned back again -  
  
"I shall inform no one."  
  
She walked away from the room in a far better condition than when she had entered. His confidence in her, and respectful word that he would not defy her wishes had strengthened her, reinstated some amount of her power. She would later understand that it was a façade, constructed for her benefit only, but that he possessed the decency to do so meant something of its own accord.  
  
Upon her exit he was left with his own furious thoughts, contemplating the implications of the incident. Her position in his confidence was pre- existing and genuine, though the delivery of it and any delicacy regarding the matter were contrived. The irritation she had detected was very real, and he intended to break his word the instant he could next see Dumbledore. He was concerned not with the victimization of or pity for the girl, but the danger of regression to the Lucius he originally knew; so much more dangerous for lack of hampering by any civility. So unpredictable a person in so high and controlling a seat of power, the universe's automatic prevention by the need of discipline and control to wield true control over others having been over-ridden by mental regression. Any retribution for the crime that embodied said regression was in fact a hollow hope, but the man who headmastered far more than the confines of the school needed to be aware of the new and greater danger of a Lucius so desperate for the power that he thirsted for, possibly even *needed* to physically survive, that he would revert to the fiercely suppressed hellion within.  
  
Then came the chilling knowledge that this was evidence some victory for the cause pursued was coming, fueled by either Lucius' own fire or that of the competition who's success had spurned the feeling of fear or inadequacy that had brought him to the girl, desirous of a regaining control. Supported by the reappearance of the mark, Karkaroff's nerves, and attempts at Potter's life, all of which he had previously convinced himself were the result of some hollow effort, he was forced to accept that a revival was threatening to strike; it was merely a matter of time. The thought of the cool, weightless porcelain of the magically fixed mask on his face again, night black ribbons charmed to repel spells cast at the back knotted at the base of his skull on smooth braided hair resulted in one half of his psyche desperately pulling in the cool reassurance of breathing again, while the other cringed at the prospect. He would have to prepare himself to lower into the pit once again.  
  
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But bit by bit the balm of her lover's words and voice smoothed over the scars, partially masking them from so painful of a view for the silken- voiced appeaser. The thoughts were driven from her mind and her last few drops of consciousness finally left her, embodied in trickling tears as she feel deep into a rolling sea of slumber next to him.  
  
His fingers ran along her spine as he continued to speak for nearly half an hour after he felt her body crumple and breathing slow. She did not feel him leave her, nor was she disturbed by any sounds thereafter, protected by dreamless exhaustion. She was only awakened by his return four hours later, his very presence standing over her stirring some instinct to wake. She blearily studied him, stalk still and staring at her from the open foot of the bed, and finally spoke his name in the form of an inquiry as to the logic of its possessor. He said nothing, too filled with emotion to respond as he clamored on hands and knees up her outline, reaching the intersection of lips to stake what he intended to re-claim in his own mind.  
  
The stars above glinted knowingly at them, almost as a human coyly smiling slyly but approvingly, for no spell could block the penetrating gaze of the cosmos.  
  
~*~*~*~ 


	5. Chapter 5: Dawn and Twilight

A/N : At long last, the finale.  
  
DISCLAIMER: All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.  
  
And now, on with the show:  
  
~ Chapter 5 : Dawn and Twilight ~  
  
The light of dawn and crackle of activity in the street below took hours to slowly wake them, confusingly filed as a single person in the bedsheets. She awoke to find him holding her as he had when she had first fallen asleep, only filled with the genuine relaxation he had been attempting to replicate.  
  
She looked up at him to find his eyes already open, and half-asked "So it wasn't a dream?"  
  
"No."  
  
He gazed at her for a moment, then intoned with infinite resolve "I love you."  
  
They resettled against each other and she sighed, curling her head to his chest in full intention of drifting back into slumber, but then came his sudden realization -  
  
"Hadn't we ought to be getting you to graduation?"  
  
Her eyes sprang open and she raced to dress, quickly separating their respective sets of clothing from the items strewn on the immediate floor and through the bed itself. He joined her in the task, not quite so rushed or precise in his carrying out of it, and taking advantage of numerous opportunities to tickle her in bared areas of weakness as they went about it, earning him a bat to the temple with her underskirt.  
  
As they walked out of the inn and down the street toward the apperation depot together, just as they had the week and month before - or perhaps a millimeter closer, she was none the wiser of the thirty galleons worth of smashed and tearstained furniture in the next battered room that had delivered him to her.  
  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
  
8 months later  
  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
  
His thoughts journeyed back to that fateful night she had revealed her true life story to him as he stood at the forbidden sink, painfully fingering the emblem of a snake on the faucet, mind too wrapped in the freshness of his loss to hear Myrtle's echoing sobs as he hissed the command to open.  
  
As his feet crunched through the parched skeletons of a thousand years' casualties to the horror that had once waited within the cavern for all, robes slick with the slime of a slide down the stony chute, he could think only of what had awaited him personally during his first descent. He could hear his own foolishly naive voice in his head as he crawled through the tunnel in the forgotten avalanche, struggling to pull a now much larger self though the opening.  
  
It was on the opposite side that he doubted himself, but was steeled by the memory of her face when she had sunk in front of him after the only slap that her hand had ever dreamed of bestowing him in her all too short life. It must be had for her pyre - the ring lost to looters, it was the only evidence of events without which the woman he called his wife would never have truly existed. It was instrumental in her soul's construction; it was only right for it to have its place in her body's destruction. Even now, he found it difficult to imagine; the image was impossible to picture, but he knew that did not change its truth, nor the justice.  
  
His reaction when she had told him, his fury and pain while she slept that night, crying for her and because of her before seeing her sleeping so peacefully and being washed over with l-ove that had to be fulfilled before it overwhelmed him completely raced through his mind as he advanced to the chamber. As soon as he entered, though, his thoughts turned to his own memories of the events that evening of his second May in the castle, feeling the blush of his blindness to the truth. For some reason, now that she was gone and the living memory was quieted, he had to see for himself. To put his hands on some reminder of the true meaning of the affair, of his wife's first love.  
  
He approached the base of the statue, heading not for the enshrinement itself, but the pillar of reptilian hate just before it which had revealed his adversary so long ago. He slowly ventured behind the column and instantly discovered what he was both desperately awaiting and dreading. Tucked away in the envelope of shadows sat a large stone bowl, settled in its hiding place on the floor, encrusted with the mold and filth of six years' uninterrupted stagnation of half its fill of water. The rag was equally repugnant, hardened across the lip of the vessel, unchanged, as if frozen in time.  
  
He scooped up the relic, feeling in it's weight a sort of resolution. For the first time, he could see the caring scene playing out in his head, enabled by the metaphysical fingerprint of the instrument. He stood in respect of the moment as he thanked whatever force responsible that she had told him while she could, that he found her before she left. That if even for only those few months, he truly *knew* his wife. That he had heard the confessions of an heiress.  
  
~*~ Fin ~*~  
  
A/N: Nicole suggested the title "The Girl Who Loved a Book", but I liked mine better : ) .  
  
The R-rated and vocabulary infused version is also posted on the site, and is an R because you hear more about the happenings in the chamber and corridor.  
  
Thanks to Lisa, without whom's enthusiasm and merciless beta-ing I wouldn't have gotten the thing off of the ground. Many thanks also go to Serene Chaos for "Schoolgirl", which seeded the concept of some remotely if not entirely willing bond and the necessity of sexual energy in the matter of Tom's re-animation, and provided the lens through which I saw the above dynamics played out in the movie. Not to mention Bonnie Wright and Christian Coulson for their respectively sophisticated and utterly magnetic performances, which under the influence of my having just read "Schoolgirl" spurned the core story. 


End file.
